Isn’t it a tragedy, then, a criminal shame, that all their amazing brainpower gets wasted on word games? If they’re as smart as they think they are and there were some way to channel their alleged brainpower to something other than word games, we could cure cancer in a month!

Seriously, if their awesome problem-solving brainpower were somehow harvested like wind energy (maybe they could wear little beanies on their heads?) they could solve all the world’s problems and have time left over to do an extra double-crostic.

You’ll find the full article, by Ron Rosenbaum, “Crossword, Sudoku Plague Threatens America!” at Slate: http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2198171

You say that “If someone has to do brain exercises in order to avoid brain deterioration it’s because the rest of his life is so dull that he needs artificial stimulation”. You must not have had any first-hand experience of persons with senile dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother-in-law was enjoying a very full social life, active in her church. Alzheimer’s Disease slowly robbed her of that. The onset was so gradual we didn’t know that her forgetfulness and occasional confusion was the start of something quite devastating. She had mental stimulation in the form of socialization, but there was no activity in her life that stimulated her brain in the ways that science has found can forestall mental deterioration. Read these lines again, please:

” people could lower their dementia risk by 7% simply by adding one activity per week (such as doing a crossword puzzle or playing a board game) to their schedule. According to the findings of that same study, subjects who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than subjects who did a crossword puzzle just once a week.”

Whether crossword puzzles are boring or not has nothing to do with the therapeutic outcome of doing them.

Perhaps it’s too difficult for people to realize that, as we age, aspects of our physical health can diminish. That’s pretty much what defines “aging.”

Watch some older bodybuilders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAUQd1xfyPs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUvjXQHt6QQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfWAjJinySI

These guys are old, but they defy the common belief that with age you lose your energy and become weaker.

Brushing your teeth is a solitary activity. You do it by yourself, and because the mouth is full of foaming toothpaste, it renders social intercourse impossible. Its momentary benefit is that it refreshes the mouth, but that’s not why people should do it. The larger purpose of brushing our teeth is to prevent tooth decay and loss. Word play provides similar benefits. It may provide the immediate gratification of indulging in a game, but its larger purpose is to help prevent neurological degeneration.

“But,” you may protest, “brushing your teeth is something that only takes up a limited part of your time, leaving the rest of the day open to social activities.”

That’s certainly true. And the same is also true of doing crossword puzzles and other games that stimulate the hippocampus. There has been NO suggestion that people spend their entire day indulging in word games! Persons at risk of neurological degeneration are NOT told to sit “in a corner” of their house doing word games, isolating themselves from the society of other people. They are merely advised to devote some small portion of their day to the pursuit, leaving the entire rest of the day to engage in more extroverted activities.

I should have thought that that would be obvious.

My criticism of the advice (to do crossword puzzles) is that it is ubiquitous and that it is aimed at all older folks as a good way to keep your faculties.

If you are an older person (whatever that means these days) you are not diagnosed with any medical condition leading to mental deterioration, get off your butt and stay active in the world. Don’t just hunker down with crossword puzzles (per the common advice) and figure that you are keeping your mind sharp. That is my point.

If someone wants to do crossword puzzles for fun, fine. I have no problem with that.

I object to the notion that doing crosswords is a commendable way for healthy older people or (in the absence of studies comparing the benefits of crossword puzzles versus staying active in one’s community) a preferable way to keep one’s mind sharp. Sitting in the corner of one’s house and doing crossword puzzles is solipsistic and self-absorbed. Crosswords have the same general downside as an activity often enjoyed by otherwise healthy youngsters: sitting around playing video games.

“And I really would like to see the study I am suggesting, which would anwswer my concern once and for all.”

So, even though there is an absence of any study which would show that elders going out and making the community a better place causes them to reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s, a truly horrible disease, you still strongly advise that activity, rather than doing crossword puzzles, which have been demonstrated in a scientific study as reducing that risk by nearly half. A more prudent, more rational course of action would be for people at risk of Alzheimer’s or dementia to do crossword puzzles (as well as board games and other related brain-stretching exercises) until a study is done that shows, scientifically, that there is equal neurological benefit in community activities.